Samsung’s S Suggest Helps You Find the Apps You Need

If you want to find apps that work well with your Galaxy Tab 2 but don't know where to start, Samsung makes your search easy with the S Suggest app. Eric Butow shows you how to shop for and download apps, as well as share your app recommendations with others.

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If you're not sure what apps are available for your Galaxy Tab 2 or which ones are best for you, Samsung can help. The preinstalled S Suggest app not only allows you to shop for Android apps that work best on the Tab 2 but you can also share your app recommendations with other Samsung Apps users.

What's more, you can also download apps recommended by other Samsung Apps users. Note that you must be connected to the Internet through your Wi-Fi connection for S Suggest to work.

Open the S Suggest app by tapping the Apps icon in the home screen, swiping from right to left to open the second page in the Apps screen, and then tap the S Suggest icon as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 The S Suggest icon appears at the left side of the third row within the second page of the Apps screen.

Picks

The S Suggest screen opens, as shown in

Figure 2, with the Picks category selected in the menu bar at the top of the screen. The screen is divided into three sections:

The gray menu bar at the top of the screen contains category names, the search icon, and the menu icon. The Picks category is open by default and displays the latest featured apps picked by the Samsung staff.

Large icons that show the featured apps. You can swipe from left to right to view each app and tap the app to open information about the app on the app's Details screen.

The Recommended Apps section contains smaller icons with the staff's recommended apps. Tap the More link in the Recommended Apps header bar to view more apps in this section in the Recommended Apps screen. You'll learn more about how to view a list of apps and information about an app later in this article.

Figure 2 Swipe back and forth to view all the large featured apps icons underneath the menu bar.

If you want to view more sections, swipe upward on the screen to view more sections, including these:

Hot Games

Kids Fun

Business

Tap the More link in a section header bar to view the entire list of apps in the section in its own screen. The remainder of your menu options appear in the following order from left to right.

Categories

Tap Categories in the menu bar to view the app categories on the left side of the screen, as shown in Figure 3. The All category is selected by default and displays a list of apps on the right side of the screen.

Figure 3 Swipe up and down the list of categories on the left side of the screen until you find the category you want.

The top of the apps list contains images of two featured apps in the category and underneath you'll see a list of other apps underneath the header bar, which in Figure 3 is labeled All. At the right side of the header bar, you can view all apps that require you to pay for them by tapping Paid, or you can tap the icon with three bars to open the Sort By window so you can sort apps by Top Used, Top Installed, Top Rated, or the Newest apps.

You can view the entire list of categories by swiping up and down the categories list. When you find a category you want to view, tap on it. The header below the two featured apps changes and apps within that category appear underneath the header bar. You can swipe up and down the list of apps to view all apps in that category.

Each app tile includes the app icon, the name of the app, the producer of the app, the number of likes for the app from other S Suggest users on Facebook, and the price of the app. Tap the app tile to open the Details screen. You can return to the Categories screen by tapping the Back icon at the left side of the menu bar.

Games

Tap Games to view all the game apps within S Suggest. The list of gaming categories appears on the left side of the screen as shown in Figure 4. As with the Categories screen, the All category is selected by default and the list of apps within the category appears on the right side of the screen.

Figure 4 Swipe up and down the list of game categories on the left side of the screen to view all the categories.

The layout of the Games screen is similar to the Categories screen: Two featured apps appear as images above the list of apps. In the category header bar underneath the featured app images, you can view the list by paid apps by tapping Paid in the header bar; you can also tap the icon with three bars to sort the list by Top Used, Top Installed, Top Rated, or Newest apps.

Swipe up and down in the category list until you find the category you want and then click on the category name. Within the category list, swipe up and down until you find a game that interests you and then click the game tile to open the game's Details screen.

Friends

Tap Friends so you can log in to your Facebook account and share your S Suggest app recommendations with your Facebook friends, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 The Connect screen appears in the Friends section when you use S Suggest for the first time.

Tap the Connect button to view the terms and conditions for using S Suggest with Facebook. Next, tap the Agree check box and then tap the Agree button. The Facebook window opens so you can enter your Facebook login name and password. Tap the Log In button to log into Facebook and continue the installation process.

The S Suggest window appears and asks if you want to use this app with Facebook. Tap the Install button in the upper-right corner of the window shown in Figure 6.

S Suggest asks if it can post messages on your behalf and access your custom friend lists. You can remove a permission entry from the list by tapping the Close (X) button to the right of the permission name and description in the list. Tap Allow All to allow all the permissions in the list or tap Allow None to disallow all permissions in the list.

The Friends screen shows your Facebook name and profile picture at the top of the screen as shown in Figure 7. Tap the Display My Name as Anonymous check box to display messages with your S Suggest app recommendations without your name.

Figure 7 The list of friends who have recommended S Suggest apps to you appears under the Friends header.

Tap the Share My Apps with Friends check box to send a message to your Facebook friends when you have downloaded an app from S Suggest. After you tap this check box, you'll see whether any of your friends have S Suggest installed and have recommended any apps to you. If no Facebook friends are on S Suggest, then a message appears that says your friends must have S Suggest installed to appear in your Friends list.

Info

Tap the Info icon to view latest videos from Samsung in the YouTube app, as shown in Figure 8. The most recent video from Samsung appears at the top of the list.

Figure 8 Swipe upward on the screen to view the entire list of videos.

The list includes the title of the video and the date when it was published. When you tap a video title in the list, the YouTube app opens automatically and begins playing the video on the screen. You can return to the S Suggest Info screen by tapping the screen while the video plays and then tapping the Back icon in the Notification bar.

Search

Tap the Search icon to open the Search box in the menu bar. Type your search term(s) in the box. When you tap the Search icon button in the keyboard, a new screen appears that shows a list of apps that match the term(s) you entered. Close the Search box by tapping the Close (X) icon at the right side of the box.

Menu

Tap the Menu icon to open the drop-down menu so you can open a screen to get online help as well as more information about S Suggest, or you can log out of your Samsung account to log out of S Suggest.

Get Details and Download an App

When you find an app you want more information about and/or want to download, tap the app icon. The Details screen appears as shown in Figure 9 and displays information about the app at the top of the screen with screenshots of the app underneath.

Figure 9 Swipe upward on the screen to see all the sections on the Details page.

As you swipe down the screen, you'll see the Description and Comments sections shown in Figure 10, and you'll also see any Facebook friends who have recommended the app.

Figure 10 Continue to swipe upward on the screen to view a list of Facebook friends who own the app.

At the top of the screen, you'll see three buttons to the right of the app name:

The thumbs-up button allows you to add your approval of the app to the Details screen for other S Suggest users to see. The total number of approvals appears to the right of the button.

When you tap the Share button, the Share Via window appears, so you can share information about the app with other users through a variety of apps including email and Gmail messages, Google+, Samsung's ChatON instant messaging app, and even directly through a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection.

Tap the Download button to begin downloading the app to your Tab 2.

After you tap the Download button, the Play Store screen opens and displays more information about the app on the screen. As with any other app listing in the Play Store, you can swipe up the left column to view information about the app developer and swipe up the right column to view information about the app. When you're ready to install the app, tap the Install button in the left column.

If you would rather not download the app, tap the Back button in the Notification bar to go back to the Details screen for the app in S Suggest.

Now that you've had the grand tour of S Suggest, enjoy using the app to discover apps that work with your Tab 2 and work well for you.